'Propaganda Films': Notable directors who had worked at the company.
Propaganda Films - a prolific and successful music video and film production company founded in 1986 by Steve Golin, Sigurjon Sighvatsson, Michael Bay, David Fincher, Nigel Dick and Dominic Sena.
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- Director
- Cinematographer
- Camera and Electrical Department
Dominic Sena was born on 26 April 1949 in Niles, Ohio, USA. He is a director and cinematographer, known for Kalifornia (1993), Whiteout (2009) and Swordfish (2001).- Producer
- Director
- Actor
A graduate of Wesleyan University, Michael Bay spent his 20s working on advertisements and music videos. His first projects after film school were in the music video business. He created music videos for Tina Turner, Meat Loaf, Lionel Richie, Wilson Phillips, Donny Osmond and Divinyls. His work won him recognition and a number of MTV award nominations. He also filmed advertisements for Nike, Reebok, Coca-Cola, Budweiser and Miller Lite. He won the Grand Prix Clio for Commercial of the Year for his "Got Milk/Aaron Burr" commercial. At Cannes, he has won the Gold Lion for The Best Beer campaign for Miller Lite, as well as the Silver for "Got Milk". In 1995, Bay was honored by the Directors Guild of America as Commercial Director of the Year. That same year, he also directed his first feature film, Bad Boys (1995), starring Will Smith and Martin Lawrence, which grossed more than $160 million, worldwide. His follow-up film, The Rock (1996), starring Sean Connery and Nicolas Cage, was also hugely successful, making Bay the director du jour.- Producer
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David Fincher was born in 1962 in Denver, Colorado, and was raised in Marin County, California. When he was 18 years old he went to work for John Korty at Korty Films in Mill Valley. He subsequently worked at ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) from 1981-1983. Fincher left ILM to direct TV commercials and music videos after signing with N. Lee Lacy in Hollywood. He went on to found Propaganda in 1987 with fellow directors Dominic Sena, Greg Gold and Nigel Dick. Fincher has directed TV commercials for clients that include Nike, Coca-Cola, Budweiser, Heineken, Pepsi, Levi's, Converse, AT&T and Chanel. He has directed music videos for Madonna, Sting, The Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Aerosmith, George Michael, Iggy Pop, The Wallflowers, Billy Idol, Steve Winwood, The Motels and, most recently, A Perfect Circle.
As a film director, he has achieved huge success with Se7en (1995), Fight Club (1999) and, Panic Room (2002).- Director
- Producer
- Art Director
Nigel Dick was born on 21 March 1953 in Catterick, Yorks, England, UK. He is a director and producer, known for S Club Seeing Double (2003), Band Aid: Do They Know It's Christmas? (1984) and Dead Connection (1994).- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Gore Verbinski, one of American cinema's most inventive directors who was a punk-rock guitarist as a teenager and had to sell his guitar to buy his first camera, is now the director of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) which made the industry record for highest opening weekend of all time ($135,600,000) and grossed over $1 billion dollars worldwide.
He was born Gregor Verbinski on March 16, 1964 in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, to Laurette Ann (McGovern) and Victor Vincent Verbinski, a nuclear physicist who worked at the Oak Ridge Lab. His paternal grandparents were Polish. In 1967, the family moved to California, and young Gregor grew up near San Diego. His biggest influences as a kid were Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis and Black Sabbath's Master of Reality. He started his professional career as a guitarist for punk-rock bands, such as The Daredevils and The Little Kings, and also made his first films together with friends. After having developed a passion for filmmaking, he sold his guitar to buy a Super-8mm camera. Then Verbinski attended the prestigious UCLA Film School, from which he graduated in 1987 with his BFA in Film. His first professional directing jobs were music videos for alternative bands, such as L7, Bad Religion, and Monster Magnet. Then he moved to advertising and directed commercials for Nike, Canon, Skittles, United airlines and Coca-Cola. In 1993 he created the renowned Budweiser advertising campaign featuring croaking frogs, for which he was awarded the advertising Silver Lion at Cannes and also received four Clio Awards.
Verbinski made his feature directorial debut with Mousehunt (1997), a remarkably visual cartoonish family comedy. His next effort, The Mexican (2001), came to a modest result. However, Verbinski bounced back with a hit thriller The Ring (2002), grossing over $230 million dollars worldwide. His biggest directorial success came with the Disney theme park ride based Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003), with a brilliant acting ensemble, grossing over $650 million dollars, and bringing five Oscar nominations and many other awards and nominations. Disney ordered two more films which Verbinski shot one after another on location in the Caribbean islands, for which he had to endure both tetanus and typhoid immunization shots. After having survived several hurricanes, dealing with sick and injured actors, and troubleshooting after numerous technical difficulties of the epic-scale project, Verbinski delivered. He employed the same stellar cast in the sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) and the third installment of the 'Pirates' franchise Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007).
Gore Verbinski does not like publicity. He has been enjoying a happy family life with his wife and his two sons. He resides with his family in Los Angeles, California.- Director
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He grew up in Versailles with a family who was very influenced by pop music. When he was young, Gondry wanted to be a painter or an inventor. In the 80s he entered in an art school in Paris where he could develop his graphic skills and where he also met friends with whom he created a pop-rock band called Oui-Oui. The band released 2 albums ('Chacun tout le monde' and 'Formidable') and several singles until their separation in 1992. Gondry was the drummer of the band and also directed their video clips in which it was possible to see his strange world, influenced by the 60s and by his childhood. One of his videos was shown on MTV and when Björk saw it, she asked him to make her first solo video for 'Human Behaviour'. The partnership is famous: Gondry directed five other Björk's videos, benefiting by the huge budgets. This led to commissions for other artists around the world, including Massive Attack. He also made a lot of commercials for Gap, Smirnoff, Air France, Nike, Coca Cola, Adidas, Polaroid and Levi - the latter making him the most highly-awarded director for a one-off commercial.
Hollywood became interested in Gondry's success and he directed his first feature movie Human Nature (2001), adapting a Charlie Kaufman's scenario, which was shown in the 2001 Cannes Festival. Although it wasn't a big success, this film allowed him to direct Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), for which he again collaborated with Charlie Kaufman. The movie became a popular independent film and he and his co-writers won an Oscar for it.- Director
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Zachary Edward "Zack" Snyder (born March 1, 1966) is an American film director, film producer, and screenwriter, best known for action and science fiction films. Snyder made his feature film debut with the 2004 remake Dawn of the Dead and has gone on to be known for his comic book movies and superhero films, including 300 (2007), Watchmen (2009), Man of Steel (2013) and its upcoming sequel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). Snyder is the co-founder of Cruel and Unusual Films, a production company he established in 2004, alongside his wife Deborah Snyder and producing partner Wesley Coller.- Director
- Producer
- Actor
Simon West is a British born and Hollywood based film director and producer. His films include CON AIR starring Nicholas Cage, "THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER" starring John Travolta and "LARA CROFT: TOMB RAIDER" starring Angelina Jolie. West is the only live action director ever whose first three 3 films all grossed over $100m at the US box office.
West also served as an executive producer on the Oscar nominated BLACK HAWK DOWN. He will be reteaming with BLACK HAWK DOWN writer Ken Nolan to direct THUNDER RUN based on the book "Thunder Run" written by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist David Zucchino. His television company has produced acclaimed series such as Fox's "KEEN EDDIE", the CBS series "CLOSE TO HOME", Fox's "HUMAN TARGET" and the NBC series "THE CAPE".
West directed the action-packed remake of "THE MECHANIC" starring Jason Statham and Ben Foster and "THE EXPENDABLES 2" starring almost every action star in the movie world. This film grossed over $300m in worldwide box office.- Director
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Over the years, increasingly drawn towards more personal projects, Stephane Sednaoui has redefined his artistic approach to focus on his fine-art and cinematographic projects. New, existing, and primarily unseen work have been exhibited recently at the MoMA, New York (2015)- the 9/11 Memorial Museum (2013-2015), New York - the Brooklyn Museum, New York (2013 - the Barbican Gallery, London (2014) - Le Grand Palais, Paris (2015)- the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (2014) and Sam Art Projects Foundation, Paris (2013).
Stéphane Sednaoui career started 30 years ago exploring various film and photographic territories. He covered with success the genres of music videos, photojournalism, portrait and pop culture. In 2005, Palm Pictures added to its dvd series dedicated to the best music video directors, a retrospective of his work, _The Work of Director Stéphane Sednaoui_. In 2014, Kehrer published his photography book _Search & Rescue at Ground Zero_.- Director
- Producer
- Writer
Mark Romanek was born on 18 September 1959 in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He is a director and producer, known for One Hour Photo (2002), Never Let Me Go (2010) and Michael Jackson feat. Janet Jackson: Scream (1995). He is married to Brigette Romanek.- Director
- Editor
- Producer
With the feature documentary American Hardcore Paul Rachman revisited his music and filmmaking roots having started his career making underground films and rock and punk music videos in the early 80's with bands such as the Bad Brains. He later became one of the of the industry's top music video directors at Propaganda Films in Los Angeles where he worked with such artists as Alice in Chains, The Replacements, Temple of the Dog, Sepultura, Roger Waters, Joan Jett and the Bad Brains. He garnered numerous nominations and awards for his music video work.
He made his feature film directorial debut in 2000 with Four Dogs Playing Poker starring Forrest Whittaker, Tim Curry and Olivia Williams. He also directed several award winning short films most notably Drive Baby Drive, Memories, Home, Bang Bang, and Zoe XO.
Paul is also a founder and east coast director of the Slamdance Film Festival. Since its inception in 1995, Slamdance has been described as one of the top 10 film festivals in the world today by Vanity Fair magazine.- Director
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Alex Proyas has moved effortlessly between helming TV commercials and music videos to feature films. Born to Greek parents in Egypt, Proyas relocated to Australia with his family when he was three years old. He began making films at age ten and went on to attend the Australian Film Television and Radio School along with Jane Campion and Jocelyn Moorhouse. Proyas collaborated with Campion on two of her shorts, A Girl's Own Story (1984), for which he wrote and performed a song, and Passionless Moments (1983), which he photographed. Proyas' own short, Groping (1980), had earned him some attention at festival screenings in Sydney and London. Also while still a student, the enterprising novice formed Meaningful Eye Contact, a production company. Spirits of the Air: Gremlins of the Clouds (1987) marked Proyas' feature debut as director and screenwriter. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, the film, with its stylized production design and aural texture, was atypical of standard Australian fare, more closely resembling a longform music video. Critics admired the director's vision, but felt the overall result was lacking. Proyas continued to hone his craft helming TV advertisements for products like Nike, Nissan and Swatch (earning kudos from advertising associations in both Australia and England) and directing videos for such artists as Sting, INXS and Crowded House. In 1993 Proyas was tapped to helm the screen adaptation of James O'Barr's comic strip The Crow (1994). During production, star Brandon Lee died of an accidental gunshot wound (ironically, the film's story revolves around his character's resurrection). His death cast a pall over the remainder of the filming and its subsequent theatrical release, although reviews were generally favorably, most singling out the production values which created a colorless rain-soaked wasteland that invoked comparisons with Ridley Scott's seminal Blade Runner (1982) and Tim Burton's Batman (1989). Made for about $14 million, it grossed close to $50 million domestically. Proyas seemed set to move on to other projects and was announced as the director of Casper (1995), but left the project and was replaced by Brad Silberling. After a four-year absence he returned with another thriller, Dark City (1998), about an amnesiac who may or may not have been a serial killer. Garage Days (2002) marked Proyas' return to his homeland, Australia: the movie tells the story of a young Sydney garage band desperately trying to make it big in the competitive world of rock 'n' roll. In 2004 Proyas returned to Hollywood: he directed I, Robot (2004), a science-fiction film suggested by the 'Isaac Asimov' short story compilation of the same name that starred Will Smith. It was a box office success, but met with mixed reactions by readers and fans of the Asimov stories.- Writer
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Born in precisely the kind of small-town American setting so familiar from his films, David Lynch spent his childhood being shunted from one state to another as his research scientist father kept getting relocated. He attended various art schools, married Peggy Lynch and then fathered future director Jennifer Lynch shortly after he turned 21. That experience, plus attending art school in a particularly violent and run-down area of Philadelphia, inspired Eraserhead (1977), a film that he began in the early 1970s (after a couple of shorts) and which he would work on obsessively for five years. The final film was initially judged to be almost unreleasable weird, but thanks to the efforts of distributor Ben Barenholtz, it secured a cult following and enabled Lynch to make his first mainstream film (in an unlikely alliance with Mel Brooks), though The Elephant Man (1980) was shot through with his unique sensibility. Its enormous critical and commercial success led to Dune (1984), a hugely expensive commercial disaster, but Lynch redeemed himself with the now classic Blue Velvet (1986), his most personal and original work since his debut. He subsequently won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival with the dark, violent road movie Wild at Heart (1990), and achieved a huge cult following with his surreal TV series Twin Peaks (1990), which he adapted for the big screen, though his comedy series On the Air (1992) was less successful. He also draws comic strips and has devised multimedia stage events with regular composer Angelo Badalamenti. He had a much-publicized affair with Isabella Rossellini in the late 1980s.- Director
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Alek Keshishian was born on 30 July 1964 in Beirut, Lebanon. He is a director and writer, known for Selena Gomez: My Mind & Me (2022), Madonna: Truth or Dare (1991) and Selena Gomez: Hands to Myself (2015).- Producer
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- Director
Spike Jonze made up one-third (along with Andy Jenkins and Mark Lewman) of the triumvirate of genius minds behind Dirt Magazine, the brother publication of the much lamented ground-breaking Sassy Magazine. These three uncommon characters were all editors for Grand Royal Magazine as well, under the direction of Mike D and Adam Horovitz and Adam Yauch before the sad demise of Grand Royal Records. Jonze was also responsible for directing the famous Beastie Boys: Sabotage (1994) short film as well as numerous other music videos for various artists.- Producer
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- Actor
Antoine Fuqua is an American film director, known for his work in the film Training Day as well as The Replacement Killers, Tears of the Sun, King Arthur, Shooter, Brooklyn's Finest, Olympus Has Fallen and The Equalizer.
He has directed music videos for such artists as Arrested Development, Prince, Stevie Wonder, Toni Braxton, Pras Michel and Usher. He was nominated for MTV's Best Rap Video for Heavy D & the Boyz. He also won two Music Video Production Awards: The Young Generators Award, for his work on Coolio's rap video "Gansta Paradise" and the Sinclair Tenebaum Olesiuk and Emanual Award for the trailer to the hit feature film Dangerous Minds (1995). Among his many commercial credits are Wings for Men, Big Star Jeans, Miller Genuine Draft, Reebok, Toyota, Armani and Stanley Tools.- Director
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David Kellogg was born in 1952. He is a director and producer, known for Inspector Gadget (1999), Cool as Ice (1991) and Playboy: Farmer's Daughters (1986). He is married to Denise Kellogg. They have three children.- Director
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John Dahl was born on 15 June 1956 in Billings, Montana, USA. He is a director and writer, known for The Last Seduction (1994), Kill Me Again (1989) and Rounders (1998). He is married to Beth Jana Friedberg. They have four children.- Director
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- Cinematographer
Born in Scotland, Paul's journey as a filmmaker began as a teenager. His Super 8 films earned him a place at prestigious St Martins School of Art in London where he graduated with BA Hons in Fine Art Film.
After directing 30 (or so) low budget Music Videos in the UK, Paul moved to Los Angeles to pursue a full time career in film-making. He signed to a directing contract through Ridley Scott & Assoc where he helped develop Black Dog films, being the 1st director on contract. At RSA he created music videos for Lenny Kravitz, Inxs, Seal and Jamiroquai to name a few.
From there Paul went on to a directing contract at Propaganda Films under the leadership of Steve Golin and Co. At Propaganda films Paul directed award winning, world-class, music videos for superstars, Shania Twain, Sting, Céline Dion, Bryan Adams, The Backstreet Boys. Paul has over 150 music videos directing credits to date.
Paul's career expanded into commercials where he created/directed campaigns for Jaguar, Toyota, Volkswagen, L'Oréal, Target, P&G, Clairol, etc. Paul was instrumental in setting up cross-promotion product placement in music videos with his worldwide smash for Sting, Desert Rose featuring the new line of Jaguars in 2001.
Paul wrote and directed his debut feature film 'Vicious Circle' which was released theatrically in '09 and won numerous festival awards including Best Picture at the NY Latino Film Festival. Paul continues to direct and now works as Head Of Production for Dave Stewart's Weapons Of Mass Entertainment, a full service production company based in Hollywood CA. Paul is also in pre-production for his sophomore feature film Girl Wanted.- Director
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Johan Camitz was born on 29 June 1962 in Stockholm, Stockholms län, Sweden. He was a director and cinematographer, known for The Johan Camitz Diesel Ads (1995), Eagle-Eye Cherry: Permanent Tears (1999) and Eagle-Eye Cherry: Save Tonight (1998). He died on 10 August 2000 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.- Director
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Douglas Gayeton is known for Johnny Mnemonic: The Interactive Action Movie (1995), Growing in the City: NRCS Assistance for Urban Farmers (2017) and Everything Is Water (2016).- Producer
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- Executive
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